[NewHermes]

Thr prohibition of drugs and organized crime are highly linked. Look at alchohol as an example. For all intents and purposes the war on drugs is a war against poor minoritites. All research has shown that it is not only innefectvie, but detrimental to families and communities.

[pyre]

You didn't respond to what your parent post said. You just opened up some canned rhetoric and dumped it onto the page.

Are you in agreement that it's ok for people to commit drug-related murders just because the War on Drugs is "bad m'kay?" Or should people be held accountable for their actions? Just because there are incentives to become a drug lord due to immoral laws doesn't mean that it's all of the sudden moral to become a drug lord. You seem to want to use your "War on Drugs is bad" opinion as an excuse for the choices that people make.

[NewHermes]

I am not in agreement that its ok to commit murder because the war on drugs is bad. Those people should be held accountable for their actions to the full extent of the law.

I do believe that there are steps policy makers could take to remove the amount of people who find themselves incentivized to commit violent crimes.

I agree that the war on drugs, though misguided, should not shoulder the blame for the actions of violent offenders, but two wrongs don't make a right.

Is calling for changes to draconian and detrimental policies and condemning those individuals who commit violent crimes mutually exclusive?

Imagine if the government started paying people to break into houses. You would obviously be mad at your neighbor if they took advantage of the new policy, and rightfully so, but you would be a lot more upset at the government for even allowing the situation to happen.

[themartorana]

I can't down vote this for some reason but it should be. Asking someone if they believe murder is ok with righteous indignation is absurd.

The comment pointed out that crime in general around drugs - up to and including murder - is much more prevalent because of the War On Drugs.

There is no moral absolutism in this world, and the government can absolutely enact laws and policies that lead to increased crime rates. Of course the perpetrator of a murder should be held to full account. But the circumstances that create the motive for murder in drug cases are at least partially due to government policies that have been proven to be a failure over and over again.

Edit: autocorrect

[pyre]

@jamespo said "Well that's the weakest excuse for ordering someone to be murdered I've read today"

Responding to that with some canned rhetoric around how drug-related murders would be fewer in a post War on Drugs world it's really a response to that post.

I have no righteous indignation. I'm frustrated that the conversation is going like this:

  Person 1: Ordering an assassination is bad, and saying that
            the War on Drugs is bad isn't an excuse for it.

  Person 2: But if the War On Drugs didn't exist, then
            drug-related murder wouldn't exist! Perverse
            incentives!

> Of course the perpetrator of a murder should be held to full account.

This is the point that I see some of these "War no Drugs == Bad" posts dancing around. They ignore this in favour of using this story as a platform to preach their views.

[themartorana]

We can likely all agree murder is almost always bad, and murder over drugs is categorically bad.

So when someone asks for an acknowledgment that murder is bad from another person, it's almost ad hominem, or so it seems to me.

So the debate is whether or not government policies create incentives or motive for crime. There are several documented reasons [1] that good people do bad things, and creating an environment for that isn't helping anyone.

It's not to say that the murderer is less to blame, but culpability isn't something that reduces criminal responsibility.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/27-psychological-reasons-why-...

[meowface]

This argument seems to be whether Ulbricht was acting immorally though, not if the "War on Drugs" should vanish. I think it's quite clear that Ulbricht deserves prosecution considering how he put hits on 2 people without hesitation, and even believed that the 2 hits were carried out successfully still without hesitation.

[spacemanmatt]

Seems like a lot of this hand-wringing is unnecessary. No one is condoning free-enterprise murder. That's just not a fair reading of any posts I have seen, so far.

[maxerickson]

I only see the one, but someone posted condoning murdering "bad people" right after you posted this.